Author of Healing Maddie Brees

Month: October 2006

It’s not that I watch a lot of television (Who Has Time?), but Bill and I are definitely into Studio 60, a new show that is only about four episodes old and is, apparently, at risk of being cut. Just our luck. But when we are watching that, we often see ads for ER, a … More I Don’t Even Wonder What Happened

Here it is: my first school picture in a thousand years. Okay, no. My first school picture since my senior year of college, a photo I only vaguely remember having taken and which I never saw again except for maybe in the pages of the yearbook I didn’t buy. I don’t know why I didn’t … More Glamour Shot

So Bill thinks Q-tips are dangerous. You know: Q-tips. Or cotton swabs. Or whatever they call them. Yes, he believes them to be dangerous. He doesn’t like me to use them in the children’s ears. “They can cause real damage,” he says. “You shouldn’t put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear,” he says. … More Division of Labor

Last weekend Bill installed new ceiling tiles in our basement, a chore that had been waiting for a few minutes of his time since March 2005 when I had recently broken my foot and couldn’t walk without crutches and, in a completely unrelated but maddeningly timed coincidence, the downstairs bathroom toilet overflowed through the disconnected … More Sweet Sabbath

“So, Emily. Tell me honestly. Does thirty-seven sound old to you?” I’ve been trying it on all day, you see. Thirty-seven. 37. That’s how old I am now, as of today, as of about 8:30 this evening. I am Definitely Not Used To It yet. I wait for Emily’s answer. Emily, my younger sister. The … More Prime Birthday

William: One week ago tomorrow was the HopeFest. Bill: Or, fifty-one weeks from today is the HopeFest. Emma Grace: Daddy, can you make another HopeFest? William: Yeah, and invite Switchfoot and U2. That’s how the conversation went last Saturday morning over breakfast, and now two weeks have gone by since HopeFest 2006, and still we … More HopeFest 2006

“Imagine a Carthage sown with salt, and all the sowers gone, and the seeds lain however long in the earth, till there rose finally in vegetable profusion leaves and trees of rime and brine. What flowering would there be in such a garden? Light would force each salt calyx to open in prisms, and to … More A Hand on One’s Hair

So one of the more difficult aspects of this return-to-full-time work has been the abiding awareness of an ending of sorts: I am back to work full-time; I am committed to this; my children are growing past a full-time need for me; I am not at home with them any more. I no longer have … More On Grieving

“So tell me about William. What he likes, if he likes school, how he felt about coming to school, what he likes to do at home…. Tell me about him.” This from William’s teacher, in the first round of my First-Ever parent-teacher conferences. It was a week ago: a half hour with three of my … More Trailing Clouds of Glory